Spark of Life
by . Appleton-Century-Crofts, $3.75.
A novel depicting a German concentration camp during the latter years of the war. Remarque tells us that he wrote it to show “the survival of the human spirit” under unimaginable stress. What he shows us, rather, is merely that a lucky few survive; what he has written is essentially a fictional documentary. As such, however — despite our familiarity with the horrors described — the book is gruesomely absorbing. It projects with terrible intensity a picture of total human anguish.